


Exploring Potential

by Anyawen



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Community: MI6 Cafe | mi6_cafe, Don't copy to another site, Friendship, Gen, Magic March, Pre-Slash, and other secrets, drinks and not-so-drunken confessions, gratuitous nods to pop culture abound, open secrets, seeking and finding, team Tolkien explains the silmarillion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23338369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyawen/pseuds/Anyawen
Summary: A rare quiet night in the world of espionage leads to Eve, Bond, and Q sharing a drink (or several) in a pub. An off-hand comment leads Q to share a secret he's never told anyone. Not all his years on Earth.
Relationships: Eve Moneypenny & Q, James Bond & Eve Moneypenny, James Bond & Q, Pre-James Bond/Q - Relationship
Comments: 9
Kudos: 122





	Exploring Potential

**Author's Note:**

> A random synapse firing led to thoughts of Q and Bond and Tolkien. I mentioned them to Lin for a laugh, and the response was 'Write it!' I protested that I didn't have time, and then wrote 70% of it in about an hour the next morning. Just in time for the MI6 Cafe Magic March challenge ...
> 
> Thank you, Lin, it's all your fault :)

“I have never seen anyone hold their liquor quite as well as you, Q - not even James. I don’t know how you do it,” Eve said as she sipped her third cocktail of the evening - a citrus basil vodka concoction with a gorgeous golden color. “I swear you’re not human.”

It was a rare, quiet night in the intelligence world, and Q, Bond, and Moneypenny were making the most of it. They’d taken up a corner booth at a pub and were having a drink or three, Q sitting opposite his companions. Eve was tipsy and on her way to truly pissed when she made the observation - entirely in jest - but Q liked the way it made him feel. Almost like he'd been truly seen. Perceived and _identified_.

Of course he hadn't been. Couldn't be. And didn't really want to be, after all. He'd chosen this life, and the anonymity that came with it. 

Made the circumstances of his current ipseity all the more ironically familiar.

He decided to revel in the feeling of recognition, erroneous and fleeting as it was, and roll with her comment. He would tell the truth, rather than brush it off. He wouldn’t be believed, anyway, and he could always ensure that neither Eve nor Bond remembered his confession in the morning.

"You're right," he said, sharing a secretive smile.

"Of course I am,” Eve agreed.

"Of course you are."

“Pull the other one, Q,” Eve laughed.

Q shrugged.

"Your believing it or not has no bearing on the fact that it's true. I am not human, though I have lived as one, or tried to, for millennia."

"Go on, then," Bond said, gesturing with his half-empty glass of whisky. "Tell us what you are. Android? Fae? Demon?"

"None of the above," Q replied with a huffed laugh, marveling at Bond's ability to shake off alcohol to focus on gathering intel. He was a master at it, and it had served him - and queen and country - very well.

"All right, then, I’ll play along. You’re an alien, clearly. From _outer space_ ," Eve said dramatically. "Are the rest of your people on their way? Come to conquer the planet? Raid our resources?" She gasped and pointed at him. “You’re not a giant alien roach in a Q suit, are you?”

"Not a giant bug, not an alien, not from outer space," Q replied with a smile. “And there’s no one else coming after you.”

“No one else?” Bond asked, eyes narrowed.

“You’re not the last of your kind are you? Lone survivor of an ancient time war?” Eve asked, eyes wide.

“I’m not the last, though there are no others like me, exactly,” Q replied, then continued, “and still not an alien, Time Lord or otherwise.”

“Too bad. A TARDIS could be quite handy,” Eve replied, studying Q as she took a drink. Putting the nearly empty glass back on the table, she asked, “What are they like, then? The rest of your ‘not alien’ people who aren’t like you?”

“Mostly … indifferent. They’re aware of everything, but do nothing. They _want_ nothing.”

“Mostly?” Bond pressed, sitting forward.

“There were a handful who came to want more than just knowing - they wanted to _have_. To control. To rule.”

“To rule who?”

“Whom,” Q corrected, grinning at Bond’s scowl and Eve’s quiet snicker.

“Pedant,” Bond accused.

“Oh, yes, I am that,” Q agreed. “Human, no, pedant, yes. And it was you they wanted to rule, of course. Humanity. Your potential is unspeakably _vast_ , and they thought to make it theirs. To interfere with evolution and cultural development in order to shape you to suit their desires. To serve them.”

Expressing the thought left a bad taste in his mouth and he lifted his glass and swallowed down the two fingers of whisky without blinking. Putting the glass down he met Eve’s astonished gaze.

“They were cast out," he said shortly.

"'Cast out?'" Eve echoed. "Like the religious story where Lucifer was thrown out of heaven?"

"A bit like that, I suppose," Q agreed.

"But, Mr non-Human, you said you weren't a demon."

"I'm not. For one thing, demons don't exist. For another, I was not among those cast out."

"Not Fallen, then," Bond said. "But not angelic, either, except in appearance."

"You were singing a different tune when we met," Q replied with a mock frown. "Something about spots."

"Not my best moment," Bond admitted. “I hope I've made my appreciation clear since then.”

“Yes, your fondness for my ‘gadgets’ has been noted.”

“Not just your gadgets,” Bond said, smirking over the rim of his glass.

Q rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond, but Eve beat him to it.

“You are killing me here, both of you,” she groaned. “It’s hard to breathe through the sexual tension between the two of you.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Q protested, ineffectively, if Bond’s serene smile and Eve’s giggles were any indication.

“Please. You’re quite pretty, Q, and once Bond pulled his head out of his arse and used his bloody eyes, he noticed. We all noticed him noticing. Didn’t you?” Eve asked with a grin as she set her empty glass on the table and caught the eye of the waitress to signal another round for the table.

Q refused to look at Bond until he knew his blush was under control. After millennia spent among people who found him attractive, naturally it was Bond - the most charmingly disagreeable bastard of the lot - in whom he felt the first bit of interest. It really made no sense.

"So," Eve continued after their drinks were delivered, "not a demon, and not angelic, but from a race that includes both. And you."

Q seized on the return of the topic of his inhumanity - a subject he’d never anticipated disclosing, let alone discussing, and certainly not with such eagerness.

"No. I am not one of those cast out, nor among those who remain and sit on their arses dispassionately witnessing the universe unfold. There isn't really a name for me. For what I am. For what I did."

"What, exactly, did you do?" Bond asked, intent, like a dog with a bone. Or an intelligence agent after a secret.

Q was grateful that Bond was not trying to push the subject of attraction and where it might lead. He was curious as well. That wasn’t what he’d come to expect from Bond.

"I left,” he said with a rueful smile.

"You left?"

"They wanted to sit back and watch you develop. Adhere to a strict non-interference policy - just a detached monitoring of your achievements."

“Like that old American scifi programme?” Bond asked. “Star Wars, was it?”

Eve let out an inelegant snort.

“I think you mean Star Trek,” Q corrected, smiling.

“Right, that’s the one. Not the one with the laser swords - which would be an excellent gadget to create, by the way - the one with the Prime Directive.”

“Light sabers are a terrible idea,” Q responded, shaking his head at the absurdity of the thought - especially in the hands of 007, or worse, 006. “But, yes, the Prime Directive is not a bad analogy. Observation only, no getting involved.”

"I thought you said you weren't one of the ones that wanted to interfere," Eve protested.

"There’s a difference between interference and involvement. I have no desire to make you into something you’re not, nor to merely exist and let eternity occur around me without tasting it. I just wanted to be here. With you. Among you."

“So you left,” Bond said, “and came here, to be ‘involved’ with humanity.”

“Well, yes. Having an awareness of your experiences wasn’t the same as living them, or interacting with you as you lived. I wanted _that_. To get as close to your experiences as possible in order to get a real understanding of life as you lived it, not merely a recognition that it had happened,” Q agreed. “I wanted to grok.”

“To what, now?” Eve asked, shooting Bond a confused look.

Bond shrugged and they both turned to Q expectantly.

“Given your familiarity with other bits of scifi pop culture, I assumed you’d know Stranger in a Strange Land,” Q said with a smile. “By Robert Heinlein. ‘Grok’ is a concept of understanding based on intuition and empathy. I couldn’t intuit or empathize with your experience of living without being here, without being among you, even if I can’t quite live as you do.”

“As we do?”

“With an ending,” Q replied, watching Eve frown at his answer.

“Do you ‘grok’ now? After you’ve been among humans for … how long?” Bond asked.

“As long as there have been humans,” Q answered. “Humanity continues to amaze and confound me. I may have a better understanding of you and your life experiences than I once did, but it remains incomplete. One day, perhaps I will grok. I hope so.”

“Surely your being here has changed us, though?” Eve asked with the serious focus of someone fighting the effects of alcohol. “You are _involved_ in our lives, after all.”

“I am involved, yes,” Q replied. “And, while I have tried to minimize it, I am sure that my presence has had an impact in your development. I only want to help. If I see a way a lesson might be learned with less destruction, fewer casualties, I may make suggestions, or point out alternate paths, but I always leave it at that. The decision is always yours.”

Eve was giving him a bemused look.

"Tolkien," she said after a minute.

"What about him?" Q asked, puzzled.

"Have you read his books?"

"I read The Hobbit years ago, and saw the films for the Lord of the Rings," Q replied.

Bond groaned and shared a look with Eve.

"You should put the Heinlein down and have a look at The Silmarillion," Eve said.

"What's that?"

"It's the history of Middle Earth, including the story of it’s creation," Eve answered. "And it tells of the Valar and the Maiar."

"And they are?"

"Pseudo-angelic beings who come to live on Middle Earth to be part of its development," Bond replied. "They didn’t want to interfere, but to help guide things along a stated plan."

"Their guidance often had interesting consequences," Eve said with a snort.

"They were far-seeing, but not all-knowing," Bond replied.

It sounded like a well-worn conversation.

"Pub quizzes," Bond explained, catching Q's puzzled expression. "’Team building exercises’.”

“Don’t sneer, James. You know you enjoy them,” Eve said, bumping shoulders with him, then turning to Q. “I’m not sure how you’ve avoided them, Q.”

“Probably busy rebuilding Bond’s cars,” Q said, shooting a half-serious glance at Bond. Eve’s snicker told him that she’d read flirting in the other half. Bond’s smile said he’d heard it, too.

“We’re all good with history, geography, politics, current events - it’s the nature of the job,” Bond said smoothly.

“But, there’s art, and literature, and sports, and all manner of other subjects in pub quizzes. Tanner took Shakespeare. R does pop culture and fashion. Doris in catering knows classic films, and Kevin is great with Americana," Eve continued, her gestures growing expansive until Bond caught her hand, kissed the knuckles and put it down on the table. His eyes were on Q the whole time, and Q could feel his cheeks heating.

"Kevin?" he said, breaking away from Bond’s gaze to look at Eve.

"He's an intern in accounting," Eve answered. "Bond and I are the Tolkien experts. And as such I believe you ... are an Istari."

“Istari? Who are they?” Q asked. “I thought you were talking about the Valar and the Maiar?”

“Istari are subset of the Maiar,” Eve explained.

“Gandalf was one of them,” Bond said.

“The Istari are wizards?”

“I suppose that’s how they’re best known. Wise. Powerful. Caring - most of them. Invested in the well-being of the people.”

“See? That’s Q to a T,” Eve said with an inebriated earnestness. “Smart as fuck, scary as hell, and stupidly invested in the well-being of his agents. You,” she pointed a wavering finger at Q, “are an Istari.”

Q rather liked the analogy, as far as his understanding of it went. He was going to have to find a copy of this book ...

"There _was_ another Maia who went to live among the people of Middle Earth," Bond pointed out.

"Melian is an outlier," Eve responded, pulling her hand free and waving Bond’s point aside as she picked up her drink. "Besides, I hardly think Q came to find a mate among us. He's never shown an interest in anyone that way. No one but you, that is."

"Eve, you are drunk," Q said with a laugh that he hoped didn’t sound as forced as it felt.

"Oh. Might be, yes," she agreed, smothering a yawn and swaying into Bond. “Did I say something -? Oh, God, Q! He smells so good.”

"Perhaps," Bond said, taking her glass from her and easing her over to lean against the corner of their booth, "you should sleep it off."

"Mmpff."

Q and Bond sat in an awkward silence for a minute as Eve snuggled into herself and appeared perfectly content to drift into a doze. Q regretted allowing his desire to be known to steer the conversation. He was well aware of his singular response to Bond, and knew it was a poorly kept secret. Still, he'd have preferred to pretend to keep it a while longer.

"It was for love, though," Bond said, breaking into Q's thoughts.

"What was?"

"You, coming here. To live among the people," Bond replied. "To ‘grok’ them. A different sort of love than Melian's, but love just the same."

Q considered. He'd always thought that his biggest motivation was curiosity. How would these remarkable beings grow? What wonders were they capable of achieving? He had wanted to be among them, watching it happen - experiencing it with them. Being _close_ to them.

"I suppose it was," Q agreed softly.

“And you’ve been here, among humans, since they were human.”

“Ages ago, yes. And just yesterday. Time works differently for me than for you,” Q responded. “Why do you ask? It’s not as though you believe me.”

“Indulge me, Q.”

“Oh, no. I’ve seen where that leads.”

“I’m not out in the field, seducing a mark, Q. Your virtue is safe,” Bond said, then offered the quip Q knew was waiting. “As safe as you want it to be.”

“Bastard,” Q laughed. His attraction was out in the open, and acknowledged, but Bond wasn’t pressing. Teasing, perhaps, but gently. It wasn’t as awkward as Q had feared it would be if it ever became known. He could let it go, until he wiped their memories of the evening and their conversation. “But fine. _Fine_. I’ll humor you, not indulge you. I came when intelligence became consciousness and the enormity of human potential could just begin to be imagined. Watching the development of self awareness, of sentience, the ability for abstract thought, and for planning for the future, was fascinating. I fell in love. I had to come.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Many lifetimes. I’ve lost count.”

“I don’t believe that for an instant,” Bond replied.

“No,” Q agreed. “I remember every one.”

“And you’ve been helping them, all that time,” Bond said.

“When I can without altering your basic humanity. I don’t want you to be anything other than what you are, I only hope to make certain mistakes less painful.”

“Some mistakes have to be made. In order to learn.”

“True, but often the ones who pay for those mistakes had no choice in the matter. They’re the ones I try to protect.”

“Why England?”

“What?”

“You could be protecting the innocent anywhere. You’re here. Why?”

“I came with the Romans. They were the power of their time. They were the ones who could do the most damage. I stayed here when their empire started to crumble and they fell back. And when Britain rose … “

“You’ve been in Britain since the Romans?”

“Since London was Londinium,” Q agreed.

“Any truth to the myths? Arthur and Camelot and all that? Merlin?”

“Oh,” Q said, ducking his head.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Bond laughed. “And you were likely in the thick of it. Which one were you, then? The king, or the magician?”

“Never the king. I don’t want to lead you. I may offer guidance, but it’s up to you to take it. Rather like being on comms with you, though I’ll admit in those cases, I’d really like you to listen to me.”

“I always listen to you, Q.”

“And then you ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you now, and I’m not going to be diverted - you were the wizard, weren’t you? Eve was more right than she knew, calling you Istari. Coming to the aid of Britain’s new king with magic.”

“It isn’t magic,” Q protested.

“I think humans might say otherwise,” Bond replied.

Q squirmed uncomfortably. Meeting Bond’s gaze, he nodded.

“I can do some things. I don’t like to, though. I’d rather persuade people to change their minds or their behavior than ‘magick’ the situation. I don’t want to change you. Humans are frightened, and generous, and destructive, and optimistic, and curious, and so, _so_ beautiful. I want you to continue, for as long as you can, and go on bringing your brilliant organized chaos to the universe. Perhaps I do nudge things a bit now and then, yes, but it’s the very last resort, and only to try to keep humanity from destroying itself.”

He looked away, poked at the empty glass in front of him, and sighed.

“I shouldn’t have said anything tonight. I will have to ‘magick’ your memory, and Eve’s, to be sure you don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to worry about Eve, and you’ll have no luck with me, I’m afraid,” Bond replied.

His tone was gentle, and amused, and there was an ebullience hiding in it as well. Q looked up, curious, and saw a muffled joy in Bond’s expression.

“What makes you think so?” he asked, nearly a breathless whisper. He found that although he’d asked the question, he didn’t doubt Bond at all. There was a tickle at the edge of his perception that felt familiar.

“The first thing I remember was hearing a whisper about a brave, foolhardy soul who had chosen to leave the primordial conscious and join creation. I always wondered what it was that motivated them. Was it a push, or a pull?” Bond said, running a finger along the edge of his now-empty glass. “For me, it was definitely a pull.”

Q stared, half certain that Bond was taking the piss, even as the tickle became something else. Something sure. Like being wrapped in tangible sunlight. It was a feeling Q hadn’t felt in ages. He hadn’t missed it, precisely, but he enjoyed its return, and the awareness it brought that for as impossible as it sounded, Bond was telling the truth.

“A pull,” he repeated. “What pulled you?”

“You did.”

“I-”

“Time really does move differently there. I don’t know how long you’d been gone before I knew you’d ever existed, but once I knew, I couldn’t let go of the idea. The boldness of it. The depth of your curiosity. Your love. The drive you must have felt to leave and be part of the world. You’d existed in that place where you could see _everything_ , know _everything_ , and you’d left it for confined space and time. That was remarkable.”

“Knowing it is not the same as experiencing it,” Q replied. “I could know everything, but I couldn’t _be_ anything. Not there.”

“No, not there,” Bond agreed. “So you left. And you came here. And some while later, I followed.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps I wanted to watch you explore your potential.”

“Our kind are fixed, there is no potential.”

“You are proof otherwise. You are more than what you were.”

“I am less, surely?” Q said. “I’ve accepted limitations.”

“Do you feel limited? In this place, in this shape?”

“I- No. I feel … free.”

Bond smiled.

“I came because you showed me I could. You wanted to learn. I wanted to _do_. I leapt at the chance when I learned it existed.”

“So, you come by your tendency toward reckless action honestly.”

“Pot, kettle,” Bond replied with a smile.

“You may have a point,” Q acknowledged. “How long have you been here?”

“I arrived sometime after the first cities were built.”

“What have you been doing, all that time?”

“You’ve always been the advisor, wizard or otherwise. I’ve always been the warrior. I arrived in the middle of a conflict, and I’ve been more or less embroiled in it ever since, always caught up in various scuffles and skirmishes. I’ve never known peace here,” Bond said contemplatively. “But I did come to experience action.”

“There is more to action than conflict,” Q noted.

“Oh, I’m aware,” Bond said, raising a brow.

“You haven’t -”

“No. I don’t want to alter them any more than you do,” Bond replied, then looked down at his hands. Q could almost swear he was blushing. “And I was always hoping to find you.”

“You were looking for me?”

“I knew you were here, but not where. I let myself be embroiled in their struggles, but I kept an eye out for you. I had hoped that entering the intelligence services would allow me better ways to search. I never expected to find you here.”

“I never thought to look for you, or that anyone would be looking for me. I didn’t know anyone had followed me.”

“Do you mind?” Bond asked.

“That you’re here?”

Bond nodded.

“Not at all. I’d never have thought to want to share the experience with someone, but I find I’m glad the opportunity to do so exists.”

“Good,” Bond said, a touch of relief in his tone. “I have grown fond of the bloodthirsty marvels.”

Q smiled, then laughed.

“I begin to make sense of your staggering number of successful missions. Your miraculous escapes and apparent resurrections.”

“I am very hard to kill,” Bond said. “And somewhat immortal.”

Q snorted at that, glancing up to catch Bond’s gaze.

“Other things make sense now, as well,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Oh. Well. My attraction to you. It made no sense for a human to capture my attention after so many millenia.”

“Have I, then? Captured your attention?” 

“Did you set out to?”

“I set out because you’d captured mine,” Bond replied. “I would be pleased to know that the reverse is true.”

“As if you didn’t know, especially after what Eve said this evening.”

“I can’t say that I was unaware, even before Eve brought it up,” Bond replied.

“It’s … almost magnetic,” Q said. “It frightened me.”

“Did it really?”

“More than anything else I’ve experienced here.”

“Do you still find it frightening?”

“Overwhelming, perhaps,” Q replied.

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” Bond asked.

“Yes.”

“Well,” Bond said, “I can work with that.”

“I look forward to it.”


End file.
